I think about it every day.

When I drop my kids off at school and watch them walk into the building, I wonder if today will be the day I should have kept them home. If I’ll say “If only they had been sick or had taken different classes or had a different lunch.”

When I hear a midday siren. I wait and try and steal a look at Facebook to see if anything has happened or I wait for the email or the robo call saying I need to rush to the school.

When I get a text from a kiddo that is just “Mom” then silence. I don’t think they got busy or got caught texting in class. I wonder if that text is the last I’ll ever get, their way of saying goodbye.

When I’m sitting in a meeting, I’ll take a minute to look around and plan my escape route out of the school I love working for, we’ve been trained for that now.

When I walk into the school office and look at the amazing faces that direct our days and take care of our sick kids and who could very well be sitting on the front lines if a shooter were to walk through the doors.

When I look at my kids’ teachers I wonder if they will someday be called upon to protect my babies actual lives when really they should only have to think about teaching them to read.

And I wonder when this will end.

Will I ever in my lifetime not have to have these thoughts?

Will it be even worse for my kids when they send their babies to school?

Will there ever be an end to the parents for whom my dark thoughts are today’s reality?

Will there ever be an end???

We can no longer assume we are doing everything right in this country. We need to look to those who send their students off to safe days at school and we need to LEARN SOMETHING.

We need to change what we are doing because it’s not working instead it seems everything is only falling apart faster and faster. We need to put aside our differences and we need to look out for the safety of our children. Without this, we have nothing.

The time is now my friends, because we’re already making a change way too late.